


Certainty

by transtwinyards



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Character Study, Depression, First Meetings, M/M, Pining, Spoilers, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-15
Updated: 2015-09-15
Packaged: 2018-04-20 22:39:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4804823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transtwinyards/pseuds/transtwinyards
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ronan Lynch always knew when people were dreams. Ronan Lynch always knew when he was dreaming.</p><p>But he could never willfully wake himself up, and he could never willfully stop himself from dreaming— <em>wanting</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Certainty

Ronan didn’t know how to wake up from a dream, but he knew when he was dreaming.

He’s tried it all: pinching, squeezing his eyes shut, jumping off heights, sleeping in his dreams; none of them worked. It left him angry and frustrated, even more so when Orphan Girl threw phrases of Latin and English at him, because she never helped his case. A dream thing cannot sway the will of a dreamer, and what Ronan knew, she knew. So when she suggested anything, he’d tried it already.

Before the happenstance that was Blue Sargent, though he was convinced that she was never a coincidence, Ronan would have been aggravated and content within his dreamscapes. There was the inevitability of night terrors, wasps taking over him, sometimes prophetic and anxiety-inducing dreams that left him breathless and more tired than he was before he slept or went unconscious.

But he could dream, could stay in a place where he was safe; where he can go back to the kingdom he was exiled from, where he could be the god of his own realm.  He could take things, small things, ask the place for it. A pen that would let you write with your non-dominant hand, a box of band aids that could heal your wounds in minutes, a notebook full of facts of what you asked of it, but only when or if you asked nicely.

After summer—after _Kavinsky_ —, Ronan could sleep. He slept from evening ‘til before daybreak, which was more than the usual sleep he got.

School was for a few months; Adam was more acquainted with Cabeswater and _different_. A different that made Ronan look at him, look away, then back again.

“ _I know it was you_ ,” Adam’s voice said in his head, in his memories. “ _I figured it out_. _The rent_.”

It was him, the voice, the image, and it wasn’t him. It seared itself into the back of Ronan’s mind, this memory. The suddenness of the words, the implications of them, the impact, Adam’s accent, the way his mouth moved around the words, his hands that were blotted with mud and sweat, and the way his eyes looked; Ronan remembered all of it.  

And he had _gaped_ , for fuck’s sake. He was about to say something, _anything_.

Then nothing. And then Kavinsky died, and then Cabeswater was back, and then Maura Sargent was gone.

More often than not, Ronan looked and looked away, but he never knew what time had passed in between looking and looking away. He just knew that by the time he looked away, Adam had probably noticed.

Adam was a wonder, a mystery, knowable and unknowable. Ronan _wanted_.

And here came the struggle. Ronan never knew how to wake himself up from his dreams. He never knew how to stop himself from getting what he wanted, then waking up to nothing. It was all a dream, a wish that will never get granted.

So he stared, and he dreamt, and he stared some more. And as time moved on, slowly, he found Adam looking back; slowly, he found Adam looking before he even looked. Something inside him lifted, and that annoyed him.

This was not the usual; this did not help with his dreams.

 

* * *

 

 

When Ronan first met Gansey, he knew in an instant that the other boy was not a dream creature. This was before dream mothers and dream brothers; this was before dead fathers and exiled princes. This was before Ronan had to even think of dreaming up something that lived a life.

But when Ronan first met Gansey, he grew annoyed. At Declan for planning to leave for DC after Aglionby, at Niall for not bothering to even take five minutes from whatever the hell he got himself involved with to introduce himself. Most of all, Ronan grew annoyed at himself.

There were nights, then, when he went to sleep with a smile, because this was before BMW street-races and cheap beer and black hooks on his shoulders. There were nights Ronan would dream of his day with Gansey.

He would dream of high cliff-faces overlooking mountains covered in forests. He would dream of Noah calling him down from whatever tree he climbed up to get closer to the sky. He would dream of Gansey’s awed look, the quirk of his smile, the dimple on his cheek, the peak of his collarbones from his popped polo collar.

Ronan would wake up smelling of grass and the gasoline in the Pig. Ronan would wake up annoyed at himself for wanting to go back, because he had it in real life.

But did he really?

 

* * *

 

When Ronan first met Blue Sargent, he was fairly certain that his dream realm wouldn’t make something so mysterious, too volatile and wild. Blue Sargent was a mystery clad in hole-ridden tanks layered on top of each other. Blue Sargent was a waitress with more authority than Gansey ever had. Consider Ronan impressed. There were less people with more authority than Gansey, than there were people more diligent than Adam.

Noah had taken an instant liking to her. Ronan took that as a good thing.

She was normally polite, but she was the voice of reason, and she always got something right. Ronan took that as a good thing, but couldn’t help feeling annoyed and anxious because what could she know about Ronan? What else could she possibly know?

 _The psychic’s daughter_ , Cabeswater had called her. It was true, she was a psychic’s daughter. But Cabeswater knew her. What _was_ she?

Could she be one of them? Could she dream things into existence? Ronan doubted it at as soon as he thought of it. She was adamant of not being magic.

Blue Sargent was too much of a wild chemical reaction that resulted from good parenting, being a non-psychic in a house of psychics, and strong maternal figures. Ronan was a wild chemical reaction of magic, night terrors, and simple disagreements that he’d gladly stretched out.

Gansey had taken an instant liking to her, eager to please and keep her pleased. Ronan thought something was going to start, had already started, or had already been happening.

It was a foreboding feeling that never settled well with Ronan, like stirring in bed and settling on a cold spot.

Adam dated her. Ronan didn’t know. What the fuck did that mean? He didn’t know, didn’t want to find out. He just didn’t. He wanted to punch a wall.

 

* * *

 

Ronan didn’t meet Noah, but when his mind had acquainted with the other boy, he wasn’t quite sure what to make of Noah.

Noah was there, but not there. Noah laughed loudly, but he could barely hear it. Ronan would see him by the doorway to his room, but then he wasn’t there.

Ronan was not afraid of Noah, whatever Noah was before they found out that he was dead, but Ronan was curious. Ronan was never curious, but Noah was there and then he wasn’t, and _Ronan was curious_.

“I don’t know either,” Noah had said when Ronan started wondering if food would go through him if he ate it. “I’ve never tried.”

That was neat, Ronan thought. Noah could hear him without saying anything.

“Yeah, I can. And it is kind of cool, I guess,” Noah stated, like Ronan had said it out loud instead of thinking it. His shoulders hunched together. “But sometimes it gets too much.”

 

* * *

 

Adam Parrish was…

Ronan did not know what Adam was to him.

When Ronan and Gansey had first encountered Adam, it was in first period Latin, the day after orientation. Gansey didn’t notice, but that was because he was new to Henrietta, and he didn’t know that Adam was fairly new to Aglionby too. Ronan knew, and Ronan looked at Adam.

There was a stray thread poking out by his shoulder and Ronan’s fingers itched to pull at it. He’d been noticing it since before Gansey had arrived. Adam was a very noticeable person, because he tried too hard not to be noticed. It worked on pompous assholes like Tad, or Kavinsky, or Cheng. But it never worked on Ronan.

He looked at the thread and snapped at the leather wristbands.

 

* * *

 

When Ronan first introduced himself to Adam, there was wariness on both of their faces. Adam was too cautious because he didn’t like rich boys. Ronan was cautious because Adam was an image from afar suddenly walking up to him.

Ronan had heard around campus that Adam was a scholarship student. He had also heard that Adam lived in a trailer park a few miles from school, and rode his bike there every morning.

He’d never encountered Adam before that, and he found that odd. He never thought of anything with detail, and he found that annoying.

Gansey had called him over at lunch, after an attempt at asking Ronan and Matthew about who Adam was. Ronan found Gansey’s curiosity charming, and so did Matthew. But it was only Matthew who had indulged him with details and wives’ tales. Ronan bit viciously into his sandwich and kept quiet.

Adam had looked confused, looked offended, and that made Ronan smirk. Adam had probably thought he was doing a good job with the unnoticeable thing. Count on Gansey to take interest in the things other people did not find.

“I hope you wouldn’t mind if I invited you over, Adam,” Gansey said, ever-so polite face and voice in full swing. Ronan took another bite of his sandwich to hide his smirk. Adam glanced his way, then back to Gansey.

“It’s just that I’m fairly new here, and I feel like us frosh should flock together, don’t you think?”

Ronan winced at the word ‘frosh’ coming out of Gansey’s mouth. Like a third-world language tried by know-it-all tourists. It sounded awkward.

Adam laughed, and it was sudden, and he frowned soon after. Ronan liked it. It was like his laugh was an unexpected variable, an error in the system. Stoic Adam Parrish, laughing. He wanted more errors.

“I suppose so,” he replied, with a polite, shy twist of his lips. His blue eyes shone with amusement, meaning that he’d noticed the awkwardness to Gansey’s language.

“I’m Richard Gansey. Just Gansey, if you please,” Gansey introduced himself, offering out a hand. Adam took it and sat down.

“I know who you are,” he said like it was obvious. Gansey has been in Aglionby for barely a month and everyone already knew who he was. “I’m Adam Parrish.”

Gansey smiled, “I know who you are.”

Ronan stayed silent. His mind was confused.

“I’m Matthew! Matthew Lynch,” Matthew shouted from beside him. He stood to shake Adam’s hand from over the table. Adam stood slightly to meet it with his own firm shake.

“Nice grip,” Matthew complimented.

“Thank you,” Adam muttered. Then, he looked hesitantly at Ronan.

“I’m fucking nobody,” Ronan said, grabbing Matthew’s juice box for himself. Matthew squawked in indignation, but made no move to grab for it.

“I know who you are,” Adam replied.

Ronan smirked, “Good.”

**Author's Note:**

> A random little thing I squeezed out. It was therapeutic. It was surprisingly easy to rush this. Comments are appreciated!


End file.
